The Brooklyn Nets’ new deal with superstar Kevin Durant includes a player option which is for the final year of the deal, according to Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes.
Per the new four-year, $164 million contract that Durant signed with Brooklyn, Durant can opt out in 2022 and again hit unrestricted free agency.
Durant’s status for the upcoming season is in question as he is in the early stages of his recovery from a ruptured Achilles that he suffered during the 2019 NBA Finals when he was a member of the Golden State Warriors, but Nets general manager Sean Marks isn’t ready to rule out Durant for the 2019-2020 season just yet.
“He will be evaluated with the performance team and so forth,” Marks said, according to the New York Post. “A timeline will be given in due time, but as of now, we’re certainly not going to comment on when or if and make any sort of hypotheticals. It’s too early.”
“For it to happen in that moment, at that time, irrespective of free agency, obviously I’d be lying if I said, ‘oh, it didn’t bother us at all,’ or ‘we weren’t at all taken,'” Marks continued. “Then we had to dig in and say, ‘OK, what does that look like? How does that work with our franchise? How does that fit with the dynamic?'”
Should Durant miss the entire 2019-2020 season, than his new deal essentially becomes a two year contract with a player option on the third season.